Commonwealth Business Media announces major restructure of its OAG business
4 June 2007
Global Focus on Customer Sectors
Integration of BACK Aviation’s Specialist Knowledge & Experience
Commonwealth Business Media (CBM), the leading information provider to the global trade and transportation market, today announced a major restructure of its OAG business, designed to bring greater global focus on serving its customers in the aviation, cargo and corporate travel industries worldwide. The OAG business will operate globally in three vertical sectors: Aviation Services, Cargo Services and Travel Services, and integrate the specialist knowledge and expertise of CBM’s other leading aviation brand, BACK Aviation Solutions (BACK).
Alan Glass, President & CEO of CBM will continue to serve as CEO of OAG. Glass has announced today his senior management team effective immediately for the new OAG organization, which was acquired by CBM parent United Business Media plc in December 2006.
Steven Casley, currently President of BACK Aviation Solutions and with over 25 years of management experience in the aviation market, is appointed Chief Operating Officer of OAG. In this role he will be responsible for leading the business integration, strategic planning and market development. He will retain his role as President of BACK, based in New Haven, Connecticut.
Stephen Bray, currently Managing Director, Product Service is appointed as Managing Director, Operations, for OAG Worldwide. Based at OAG’s office in Dunstable, UK, Bray will be responsible for all operational activity for the OAG and BACK businesses as well as customer service and fulfillment. Bray has been with OAG since 2001.
John Weber is appointed as Managing Director, Aviation Services, based in New Haven. This new group combines the aviation data services groups of BACK and OAG into one unit, bringing together OAG’s global data services and MAX suite of data analysis solutions with BACK’s worldwide aircraft fleet, financial and traffic data. Weber has been in the aviation data business for more than 20 years, most recently as VP Sales at BACK and formerly as VP of Airline Business for OAG.
David Rosen has been named Managing Director, Travel Services, also based in New Haven. Rosen is currently a principal at Nextfeed LLC, a firm that facilitates travel spending analysis for corporations worldwide. Rosen brings an extensive level of experience in distribution planning, market management and sales and information technology having worked for both United Airlines and US Airways.
Mike Navin is appointed as Interim Managing Director, Cargo Services. Navin has been working with OAG in a consultancy role for the last year and will be leading our business expansion plans for serving the cargo community.
Duncan Alexander, formerly Managing Director for OAG’s EMEA region has been appointed VP Business Development & Industry Relations. He will assist in the reorganization process with specific emphasis on market development activities.
Bill Andres, formerly SVP OAG Americas, will be working with the OAG management team on special projects and new product development. Joe Laughlin, Vice President Sales will take over the day-to-day management of OAG’s Chicago sales office,
Continuing in their current roles are Mario Hardy, Vice President/ASPAC (Singapore), Scott Daniels Vice President/Asset Management (New Haven) and Tulinda Larsen Managing Director, Analytical Services (Newark). Bart Jan Haasbeek and Dirk de Rooij of Inforwarding (OAG Dutch acquisition) will continue to play pivotal roles in OAG’s cargo business.
CEO Alan Glass commented: “OAG has tremendous brand strength within the travel and transportation industries, renowned for being the world authority on flight information. It is my intention to grow the OAG and BACK businesses into a truly customer-centric organization, with customer needs at the heart of our product development and service delivery. The reorganization announced today will drive our strategy to turn the OAG business into a more profitable data and analytics business serving all segments of the aviation and travel markets by operating in business verticals that are directly related to how our customers buy and use our products and services.
“Travel and transportation is a global industry and we have customers on all continents for each of our business units. With this new management team now in place, we can pool our strengths and expertise to deliver real value to our customers, ensuring our portfolio is aligned to meeting customer needs across all our sectors and all geographies.”
ENDS
For more information please contact:
Jill Rodby
Vice President Communications
jrodby@cbizmedia.com
(415) 847-6768
Alison Pickering
Director Communications
APickering@oag.com
+44 (0)1582-695477
About Commonwealth Business Media
Commonwealth Business Media, Inc., a subsidiary of United Business Media plc, is the leading information provider to the global trade and transportation market with comprehensive proprietary data, news and analytical content. Its leading brands include The Journal of Commerce, PIERS Global Intelligence Solutions, BACK Aviation Solutions, Air Cargo World, Traffic World, OAG and Aviation Industry Group, a number of directory databases covering the international trade, railroad and trucking markets. The Company also produces more than 30 conferences serving the international trade, aviation and maritime markets. Commonwealth is headquartered in East Windsor, New Jersey, with offices in Newark, San Francisco, New Haven, Long Beach, Atlanta, Montreal, Toronto, Washington DC, Ft. Lauderdale, Tampa, Singapore, Hong Kong and London. For more information on Commonwealth Business Media, Inc. and the products they offer, visit www.cbizmedia.com or call 800-221-5488.
About OAG
OAG is a global flight information and data solutions company for the passenger aviation, air cargo logistics and business travel markets. It brings together buyers and sellers of air travel and transport through the management and distribution of airline product information; the supply of corporate travel planning tools; and the promotion of travel and transport products.
OAG’s business is underpinned by its data management expertise. It holds a breadth of travel related content and is best known for its airline schedules database. This holds future and historical flight details for 1,000 airlines and more than 3,500 airports. Every ten seconds a flight is updated on the OAG system. Over the coming year it will track around 28 million departures. More information about the company, its products and its services is available on the OAG web sites www.oag.com, www.oagdata.com and www.oagcargo.com.
About BACK Aviation
BACK Aviation Solutions (BACK) specializes in providing strategic and technical consulting and data information services to the aviation industry. The firms maintain the world’s largest value-added transportation data collection, comprising more than twenty years of data history, and also provide a full range of technical and strategic consulting services. The firm’s transportation specialists have been drawn from airline management, academia, government, and related areas. This experience is augmented with technical expertise in applied operations research, finance, marketing, information technology and database management, strategic planning, and statistical analysis. The company's continuous growth has been due in part to repeat business from an established client base, which demonstrates a high degree of customer satisfaction. More information about the company, its products and its services is available at www.backaviation.com
About United Business Media Plc
About United Business Media Plc
United Business Media Plc is a leading global business media company. We inform markets and bring the world's buyers and sellers together at events, online, in print, and with the information they need to do business successfully. We focus on serving professional commercial communities, from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewellery dealers, from farmers to pharmacists around the world. Our 5,000 staff in more than 30 countries are organised into specialist teams that serve these communities, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently.
For more information, go to www.unitedbusinessmedia.com.
Bios:
Alan Glass is President and Chief Executive Officer of CBM. The company was formed in October 2000 after he led a management buyout of the company from its prior owner, Primedia Inc. In November 2001, the company acquired the assets of The Journal of Commerce Group from The Economist to form the largest single source of content serving the international trade and transportation market in North America. In July, 2006, CBM was purchased by United Business Media in London, United Kingdom. Subsequently,
CBM purchased Official Airline Guide in December 2006 and Aviation Industry Guide in January 2007.
Alan has over 30 years of senior management experience in the media and information industry. Since 1990, he served in a number of different capacities with Primedia Information, Inc. From 1997 until the change in ownership in 2000, he was the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer. During his tenure with Primedia, the company grew its sales volume eight times and increased profits an unprecedented 26 times.
Prior to joining Primedia, Alan was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Thomson Transport Press. A start-up in 1980, Thomson Transport Press rapidly grew to be a dominant provider of critical information used in the world wide transportation market. Thomson Transport Press completed eight acquisitions in the transportation market during his tenure. Alan began his publishing career in 1972 with The Wall Street Journal. He holds a BA in Political Science from Ursinus College and an MA in Education from Villanova University.
Steve Casley has extensive experience in strategic planning, marketing, sales, operations, logistics, and detailed project analysis for airlines and aviation-related companies. In total, Mr. Casley has more than 25 years of airline management and consulting experience. Prior to co-founding BACK Aviation, he held numerous airline executive positions at Laker Airways, People Express Airlines, serving as the Managing Director of Operations during the launch of Continental Airlines $1billion premier Newark hub, and was a senior executive at the Towers Perrin Transportation Practice. His background in consulting and direct airline experience covers virtually all aspects of contemporary aviation operations. In addition to his direct airline experience, he has led or been personally involved in over 200 consulting assignments for airlines in North America, Europe and Asia. Mr. Casley holds a BS degree in business administration and political science from St. John's University, with graduate studies at the Harvard Business School. He is often quoted in the aviation and general press and has been a speaker at numerous international aviation industry conferences.
Stephen Bray is a publishing veteran with over 30 years of senior level experience. He joined OAG in 2001 as Managing Director EMEA and Asia Pacific; later as Managing Director, Product Services. Prior to joining OAG he held several positions with Harper Collins Ltd (London) including Managing Director of Thorsons divison. Stephen has managed publishing teams in a wide variety of subject areas and organizations, with a broad experience in all publishing processes, including title and list acquisition, manufacturing, distribution and all back office functions, in both print and online environments. He holds a MA degree in Engineering Sciences and English from Emmanuel College in Cambridge.
John Weber’s career spans 30+ years of experience within commercial aviation, including senior management positions at two of the world’s largest airlines (TWA and Continental Airlines), OAG, and CBM/BACK. John’s background includes hands-on operating experience in every service aspect of the aviation business: schedules distribution, sales and marketing, call centers, passenger/ cargo/ baggage processing, airport and in-flight operations, and the development of software systems supporting all service workflows. He has proven success in managing organizations with over 500 employees, revenue production of over $200 million annually, and operating control of cost budgets of over $100 million annually. As VP at OAG he managed Airline Business for all the Americas, and at BACK Aviation Solutions has had global responsibility for sales, marketing, and product development since 2000 for the Information Services group. John’s management career, like aviation itself, has been international with long term assignments in the Benelux/ Scandinavia, southern Europe, and the UK, in addition to various postings across the USA. He speaks Dutch, French and Italian
David Rosen joins OAG with over 25 years of experience in travel and transport spanning over 40 countries throughout the Americas, EMEA and Asia/Oceania. David's airline background includes management posts in pricing, inventory, sales, market management and Information Technology with United Airlines, US Airways, Continental/Eastern and System One/Amadeus. David was responsible for a worldwide sales team that created over $500 million in new revenues for Rosenbluth/American Express through joint ventures and implementation of a global clientele. Most recently he helped found Nextfeed, an information and technology company providing global data integration and analysis. In that role David also worked closely with OAG sister company BACK Aviation on numerous airline, airport and government projects over the past 8 years, specifically in distribution planning.
Michael Navin brings over 30 years of consulting experience in the airfreight and air travel industries. In August 2005 he was appointed to Director Cargo Services, OAG Worldwide where his responsibilities included implementation of the OAG Board cargo strategy and development oversight of all new OAG cargo products and services.